HE IS famous for his biting remarks about contestants on his talent shows.
But X-Factor and Pop Idol judge Simon Cowell has made his biggest put-down to date – £40million on a Grade II-listed home in west London.
The house will include an underground swimming pool, mini-spa and car park for six vehicles. A vast under
ground extension – today's must-have accessory for the super-rich – is under construction, leaving the site looking more like a huge hole in the ground.
Cowell may be the man audiences love to groan over for his devastating criticisms of contestants' acts, but the purchase underlines his huge earning power as a TV personality, producer and music publisher.
Two years ago, Cowell, 48, paid £21.7 million income tax in the UK at the rate of 40 per cent, it is reported. Last year in the US, he was estimated to be the third-largest earner on American television, just ahead of comedian and TV host David Letterman.
Cowell is a judge on American Idol, with show winners recording with his Sony BMG record label. He is producer of America's Got Talent, another huge success, and American Inventor.
His fortune is estimated to stand at £100 million and rising. He and a partner created Pop Idol in the UK in 2001 and took it over the Atlantic in 2002.
In the entertainment business since 1977, he began his career with a failing music-publishing firm but rapidly learned from his mistakes, signing pop acts that sold more than 25 million albums in five years.
Cowell is said to be buying from property developer Omar Bayoumi, who reportedly paid £12 million for the house. Cowell already has another £7million home in Holland Park, west London, and a house in Beverly Hills, California.
By the time the £2million extension is finished, it will house a 16-metre swimming pool, a mini-spa with a Jacuzzi and treatment room, a huge kitchen and the car park. The house will have grown from about 13,000 to 21,000 sq ft.
The property has had a varied past. It was a hostel for the blind in the 1950s and 1960s, acted as the Burmese Embassy in the early 1970s and became a family home again in 1978.
By 2002, the condition of the property and gardens was so poor that Kensington and Chelsea council had to issue a planning- enforcement notice to improve its upkeep.
The building work is due to be completed at the end of the year, when the garden will be restored on top of the extension.
Stuart Robertson, principal architect at 23 Architecture, which is responsible for the plans, said: "The car park is designed so you can park your car privately and access the house – or go straight to the swimming pool."
He added: "Subterranean extensions are quite costly but with all the restrictions in this area, there are not many opportunities to extend above ground."
Cowell's decision to invest in the area may have been influenced by his brother Nick, whose company, Estate Office, specialises in investment and development deals on properties valued at up to £185 million.
The full article contains 540 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
